Notwithstanding many studies and reports focusing on infant death and injury in cribs, there remains a dramatic need for improved bedding structure to ensure safety for infants and young children and to create a more user friendly environment for the benefit of parents or other care providers.
Various enclosures are known for infant and health care beds which feature mesh and comparable materials to improve safety while also presenting aesthetically acceptable crib and bed units. Difficult access to the bed area presents handling challenges such as extreme bending in reaching down over side structure to lift or lower an infant onto a crib. Suitable closure of mesh-like materials when used with cribs presents a challenge.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,902 discloses a crib with moveable doors which form one side of the crib structure. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,902, the doors 30, 32 include materials which are flexible to permit the doors to bend at head sidewall 18 and foot sidewall 20. As shown in FIG. 5 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,902, the flexible material comprises a series of slats 56 which include a front face 58, side faces 60, and a rear face 62. Adjacent slats are fastened together at the rear face 62. A flexible backing 64 is used to secure the adjacent rear faces 62 in proper vertical alignment to enable the doors to then be slid around approximately a ninety degree corner to enable them to be housed in the end structure. Upper and lower tracks control the range of the doors.
Other crib designs can also be found, such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,555,160, which is also directed to an infant's crib. An enclosure 12 comprises two end panels 18 and 20, a side frame 22, which is suitably secured by brackets 24 and an opposite side gate 26. Side gate 26 has two sections 28 suitably hinged to the end panels 18 and 20.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,290,585 is directed to an infant's crib which includes an open mesh structure 9 that encloses the crib about framework 10. Two hinged doors 12 are also provided.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,211,762 is directed to a baby bed which utilizes a screen 4 to protect the baby.
All of the above references have shortcomings related to aesthetics, safety, and particularly with respect to the feasibility and handling of small infants.